Category: Commentary

Shirley A. Jones My mother was murdered when I was three years old. No, that’s not the first line of a book I’m reading. That’s a fact. The fact is my life was touched by domestic violence at a very young age when a man my mom was once involved with waited until my dad […]

Lee A. Daniels Add another line to Hillary Clinton’s qualifications for the presidency: “Faced down the latest Republican Party attempt to wreck the Democratic Party and the two-party system in America.” The woman who would be president – whose public career includes being First Lady to a governor and a president, winning election to the […]

House Republicans’ Benghazi Hearing last week was designed to further lower Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers in her quest to become president. But the Republican strategy backfired as the televised hearing became an 11-hour infomercial for Hillary Clinton.  George E. Curry Instead of a weakened opponent, Clinton emerged stronger than ever in the wake of Vice […]

Marc H. Morial “This is not a moment, but a movement.” – Black Lives Matter Organization –   (October 24, 2015) While it is obvious to many of us that all lives matter, it is not so obvious that in our great nation founded on the principles of equality and justice that Black lives matter.  […]

Oscar Blayton One weekend, in 1966, I was traveling with some Marine buddies from Eastern North Carolina to Myrtle Beach, S.C.  After night fell, we began to see roadside signs advertising a “Fish Fry” taking place that evening near the South Carolina border. It was late, we had not eaten dinner; and fried fish sounded […]

Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. Each Monday in Chicago, we gird ourselves for the most recent score. Not on how well the Bears, Bulls or Blackhawks, Cubs or White Sox have fared, but on how many new victims of guns have been racked up.  Two weekends ago, three were killed with 17 other shooting victims, according […]

Linda Spradley Dunn wants women to network their way to success as entrepreneurs. (Courtesy Photo) Every day, more and more women are realizing their dreams of leaving their 9-to-5 lives, opening their own businesses, and setting their own hours to follow their passion, or strike gold with one great idea.  Alongside them are, of course, the tens of thousands of women who already own small businesses, but might feel stuck, or have […]

Dr. E. Faye Williams TriceEdney— I remember a time when the worst thing you could call an African American was BLACK.  I’ve witnessed people angered to the point of fighting because someone called them BLACK.  I grew up where a paper bag could determine your place of acceptance in a social environment.  Stories abound, even […]

In late September, John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House, after years of battling Republican extremists in Congress, stunned the political world by announcing he was giving up that position and leaving Congress altogether at the end of October.  Lee A. Daniels A substantial segment of GOP officeholders in Congress and their echo chamber […]

Marian Wright Edelman “Suffering is inevitable, but how you deal with it is not fixed in stone. That can change. You can develop a way to face it.”  You might expect wise words like these to come after a lifetime’s worth of experiences, but Elijah Iqbal-Scott has seen a lot of sadness and sorrow in […]

Elijah Cummings For most Americans, the out-of-pocket prices that we must pay for essential prescription drugs, already too high, are increasing far too rapidly for our family budgets to sustain.  The Congress has the ability to moderate these price spikes — but only a sustained national outcry from the American people will bring about reform. […]

Ben Jealous In past 30 years, 120 people have lost their lives due to encounters with Baltimore Police. Many of them were unarmed. Yet before the Freddie Gray case, only five police officers had faced criminal prosecution related to on-duty deaths. Last week the Campaign for Justice, Safety and Jobs released our six-point agenda for […]